A federal magistrate rules that the White House must comply with a court order to preserve all e-mails under President George W. Bush's administration from March 2003 through October 2005, and that this ruling applies to all federal agencies subject to the Federal Records Act or Presidential Records Act.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola explained that he "ha[s] always begun with the premise that…the emails that are said to be missing are the very heart of this lawsuit and there is a profound societal interest in their preservation. They are, after all, the most fundamental and useful contemporary records of the recent history of the Presidentís office. If Napoleon was right when he said that he did not care who wrote Franceís laws if he could write its history, then the importance of preserving the e-mails cannot be exaggerated.